Ludwig down, rearranged lines (again): Thursday notes

His suspension served and Loic Leduc getting closer, C.J. Ludwig was sent back to Missouri, leaving Bridgeport with eight defensemen again.

The rearranged lines last night usually often included someone in Carter Verhaeghe’s spot, and this morning Verhaeghe was skating with the fourth-liners, and Connor Jones and Sebastian Collberg were skating with Bracken Kearns and Mike Halmo. “I think with Verhaeghe it’s consistency, game-in, game-out,” Brent Thompson said. “He has puck skills. He has offensive vision you can’t teach. He needs to be a stronger player away from the puck, on the defensive side.”

No Marc-Andre Cliche yet.

The team skated with kids from St. Vincent’s Special Needs School after practice, which is always awesome.

Mentioned late last night on Twitter: Last night’s point clinched the season series with Hartford for the Sound Tigers. And that most likely means absolutely nothing, but… if the Wolf Pack win the last two games between the teams in regulation, and the other 17 games for each team play out with exactly the same records, and they wind up tied for the last playoff spot… it goes to Bridgeport because of that point.

Ted Drury’s son Jack is among those going to the National Team Development Program’s evaluation camp. Assorted sons of NHLers within, including Adam Samuelsson, Ulf’s youngest son, who’s playing with the Connecticut Rangers.

Here’s the NWHL Isobel Cup playoff schedule. The Connecticut Whale are home in Stamford for their semifinal series this weekend.

Michael Fornabaio